Ideas are just everything.

Giving a fresh start on OS X – Revised

If you missed the first part, be sure to check it out on my blog. I posted a list of my mostly used tools for work and side projects. And I guess, I missed a tool on that post, because it could not be found in the Dock of my Mac. So let’s start with BetterTouchTool first:

Productivity

BetterTouchTool – this tool adds a whole lot of new features to your keyboard, mouse, trackpad and – if connected – your Leap Motion. I used it to increase the sensibility of the Apple Magic Mouse to 35 (Apple supports a level of up to 10, I think). This allows me to quickly move the pointer from one monitor to the other with a wisp of my wrist. Also, I added some hotkeys like “Moving the window to the next monitor” or “Make the current window half the size of the screen”. Also, making a window fullsize got a hotkey.

Evernote – A great tool to keep your notes, images and other stuff together and organized. Create presentations on the go with your analog and digital assets. You should definitely check it out if you haven’t already.

Reminders – Built-in into OS X, you may take it from the name what it is used for: To remind you of things. It is especially useful if you’re going to leave a place or arrive somewhere, because it syncs flawlessly with your iOS devices, so you get a push notification in case you’re not on your desktop computer or laptop.

Alfred – Feeling uncomfortable with the OS X built-in Spotlight search? Try Alfred! It adds a lot of value to your Spotlight search and gets even better if you buy the PowerPack from the developer’s website.

f.lux – Ever wondered why your screen is so bright at night? You can fix that with f.lux for now and forever. It adjusts your screen to be as bright as the sunrise in the morning and as dark when you’re working over night. You should try this if you have some sleeping problems but got that one project that needs to be finished soon.

Caffeine – Are you changing your energy saving options often? If you do, why not try this tool? It lets you change the settings on the fly by clicking the menu icon.

popCalendar – Need to keep track of your timetable without having the OS X calendar or Outlook all the time open? Then, this app might be the tool for you: It shows you a quick overview of upcoming events and lets you add more without opening the calender every single time.

Development

Dash – The go-to place if you need a lot of documentations in one place. From there, you can get the basics of almost any available programming language or manage some code snippets on your own. Let it be PHP, Java or iOS: Dash got you covered.

Atom.io – A free code editor from Github for every developer. It is based on Electron, a framework for crafting Desktop applications with Web technologies. It is a great alternative to Sublime Text, which I presented before.

Conclusion

There are a lot of tools, which all can be connected nicely for almost every workflow. This is my Dock for now: